


The Ghost On Your Shoulder

by AdderTwist



Category: The Losers (2010), The Losers (Comic), The Losers - All Media Types
Genre: Bromance, Nightmares, Psychological Trauma, implied pre-slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-04
Updated: 2011-08-04
Packaged: 2017-10-22 05:25:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/234321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdderTwist/pseuds/AdderTwist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos Alvarez isn't the one who survived. Like the records say, he's gone, up in flames. Cougar lived, though, and lives on, remembering.<br/>And if it weren't for his team, that would be too much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ghost On Your Shoulder

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SandyQuinn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandyQuinn/gifts).



> Yep. I had to! It was stuck in my head, and I needed to somehow soothe myself so that I wouldn't keep having Coug's nightmares, so I wrote this, and somehow it turned out well enough.

Cougar wakes to the same sounds that he alway does, this night as every other, ever since Draw Venom.

There is a particular pitch that nothing before or since has struck; frantic little voices risen into a high, unholy shriek, a choir, the roar of flames wolfing them down as they burned fast and wailed a wordless prayer - 

Carlos Alvarez believed in god, but Cougar doesn't. He dreams, he always dreams so very vividly, and he ends up feeling clawed open inside, like he's going to be sick and all the blood in his body will pour out with the hot rush of nausea and wordless horror, a face stripped of flesh and staring him down, speaking slurring and decisive, a child begging and burning, the sickly-sweet smell of -

When Cougar wakes, he makes no sound. Any sound he could make would be frantic, too familiar and sharp. Instead he sits, staring in the darkness, catching his breath in deep muted gasps and trying not to break in two, listening until he hears the faint murmurs, in other rooms.

Sometimes, if he can hear his team, he stops shaking after only a little while, and can use the rest of the night productively, can make himself ready for what has to be done, hollow but productive.  
Sometimes, Clay knows when he's woken, or guesses, leans in to check on him. Says a few words that ground him, soothe the bleeding urgent need for justice, for a world that makes sense, the ghosts of those children clinging to his sleep-addled mind, Omar's little voice echoing helplessly in his mind, and then Cougar can even smile, a tiny bit, small and shaky and unreal, and get to work alone or with the others.

 

Sometimes, just sometimes, Jensen checks on him, and those are the nights that Cougar can curl up and sleep again, Jensen settling next to him, the television murmuring and flickering whatever cartoons Jensen tracks down to them through the night, Jensen's shoulder warm against his, voice flowing with a whole tide of trivia and bizarre inanities.

Cougar will put his head on Jensen's shoulder, and not need to say the apologies or the crushing grief aloud. Under the coax and tease of Jensen's sly voice, the ghosts lift their hands and back away, cowed into silence for a few hours, and Cougar drinks in the peace, pretends that life is simple and pretends that only soldiers die.

Jensen brings him a beer, tonight, and doesn't ask; instead, somehow, he ends up explaining exactly why 'cougar' is a good name for him, explaining about the strange adaptations felines have made, over the top of some nature-channel educational cartoon talking about the Central American desert area.

Cougar nods off sometime after 'can completely stop hearing sounds they don't think're important, right', and is still faintly aware of Jake's hands pulling a blanket around him, smoothing it down.

 

And he dreams that even soldiers can live.


End file.
